Who Said glass does not look good laser engraved!

[Dan Hintz]

I'm not really on the fence, per se, I just qualify the "laser etched glass looks horrible" statement with "if it's done incorrectly".

[Gary Hair]

"laser etched glass looks horrible" statement with "if it's done incorrectly".

Therein lies the rub - I don't feel that there is a way to do it correctly...

[Bill Cunningham]

I just did a shop sample on 8x10 flat glass, a photo of Crosby leaping in the air after scoring the hockey gold.. It came out smooth and PERFECT (I do a LOT of photos, and my personal standards are very high). I will see if I can get a good contrast photo of it tomorrow and post a link to it when I can. This image was done for demonstration purposes only, because it's not my image. I just wanted it in glass for a shop demo, and personal experiment. I know a sandblaster in skilled hands can do amazing things, but I have my doubts if the amount of detail at 600 dpi I have in this photo can be cut into a mask.

[Rick Irwin]

We have both laser engravers and sandblast cabinets. Sandblasting the glass has smoother superior finish without a doubt. Creates more depth and dimension also.
As far as detail, you can laser the masking material on glass and then use sand blaster.
Lasering on glass is quicker and much easier therefore less expensive process.

[Hilton Lister]

I also used to think that sandblasting was superior as I have both systems. However the laser is far less trouble and my results these days are very close. As for glasses, the laser is far easier to set up straight lines of text
than it is to line up a mask, not to mention splitting and overlapping to get the mask to sit flat on a curved glass. Each has it's own merits and the 1000dpi setting on my elderly GCC Mercury is drastically better than 500dpi.
First choice for me is laser as the profit margin is better (not so much labour)

[William Richardson]

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

This is a glass side pedestal table top that measures almost 18 inches in diameter. The color is a hard enamel slick coat on the under side of the table. The images was reversed and lasered through the color, so the top portion of the glass was still smooth.

I did this for a friend for his business and it pays every month with people inquiring how it was done and where can I get one.

I am so glad I could spark a good debate! :-)

[Wil Lambert]

The parts turned out nice. I prefer sandblasted over laser. That said most people don;t know the difference. Most customers are happy with lasered glass. One is because of cost, two they don't know the difference unless they are side by side.

[Liesl Dexheimer]

Ahhh totally loving that piece! It almost looks like acrylic rather than glass. Amazing job!

[Ron Hamilton]

I do both sand etching (our origional business) and laser, the laser will etch detail on glass that sand etching will not, the cheaper the glass the better the result with the laser.Even with photo mask the sand etching has its limitations, blown stencils if the lines are very fine.
There is a place for both but methods and it is nice to have options.

Ron

[Bill Cunningham]

Still trying to find a few spare minutes to photograph that glass piece.. Weird, January was virtually dead up until Monday morning, then everything that would have normally been ordered and done in the first 3 weeks, has suddenly all turned up this week.. But it sure beats sitting around twiddling my thumbs

[Bill Cunningham]

Ok .. Finally found some time .. This is the Glass photo I mentioned above..
It takes up a size of 6 inches x 10 inches on a 8x10 piece of plain 3mm glass
The glass was placed on a sheet of black anodized and photographed from an angle to give it some contrast. A close up of the face shows the detail on the glass.. The Image after tweaking to my eye, was processed using the generic glass setting on photograv. I have never seen a sandblasted photo that comes close to this amount of detail. If you have one that does, please post it so everyone can get an idea of how the two differ, or compare in rendering images in glass..

[Dee Gallo]

Nice, Bill, really nice! What's the old saying.... it's not the tool it's the hand holding it?

[Dan Hintz]

Bill,

What's the rough size of the section you blew up... looks like in the area of 1"x1", sound about right? For posterity sake...

[Bill Cunningham]

Thanks for the kind words Dee. And Dan, the face size is .5 wide.. I can get a closeup to .8" on my camera so I got as close as I could.. The actual etch is on the other side of the glass..

[Dee Gallo]

Ok .. Finally found some time .. This is the Glass photo I mentioned above..
It takes up a size of 6 inches x 10 inches on a 8x10 piece of plain 3mm glass
The glass was placed on a sheet of black anodized and photographed from an angle to give it some contrast. A close up of the face shows the detail on the glass.. The Image after tweaking to my eye, was processed using the generic glass setting on photograv. I have never seen a sandblasted photo that comes close to this amount of detail. If you have one that does, please post it so everyone can get an idea of how the two differ, or compare in rendering images in glass..

So Bill, are you saying that this is "just glass", no paint before engraving? Any black we see in the photo is showing through from the anodized backdrop sheet? If it were to be displayed or framed, you would have to put it on top of a solid colored background, right?

Again, it's a beautiful example of what's possible when you prepare your photo correctly.

cheers, dee